Movie Review: Video game-to-horror flick 'Five Nights at Freddy’s' misfires badly

Just in time for Halloween comes “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” a video game adaptation with the potential treat of demented Chuck E. Cheese-like animatronic creatures running amok. But the trick turns out to be on us. 

The movie — built from developer Scott Cawthon's video game about anthropomorphic robots killing people — poorly fits into this vehicle and the problems start with the creatures themselves. 

Yes, they have unsettling bright eyes and teeth. But, c’mon, one wears a bow tie, like a guest on PBS. They’re more threadbare than eerie. Yes, they stomp around like The Terminator but one is a chubby chicken with the slogan “Let’s Eat.” They look about as scary as overgrown Care Bears with a drinking problem. One is, we're not kidding, a cupcake. 

Caught between PG and R, as well as lost at the crossroads of inadvertent comedy and horror, the PG-13 “Five Nights at Freddy’s” has to go down as one of the poorest films in any genre this year.